Just
realizing now that travelling by bicycle often ends-up turning into a sort of a
drug: any excuse, so far, regardless of the season, easily tends indeed to transform into a
good occasion to pack-up your bike and just leave … and that’s exactly what happened
also for this new trip.

In the deep
South of Italy I’d already been several times of course, by bicycle however only
a first time in October 2012 and more recently in October 2015.

Being
January, this time it will be a full winter cycling experience and therefore,
at least in the attempt to meet a milder weather, the trip shall start from
Crotone and then following the Ionian coast of Calabria first and then Sicily
we will aim to end-up to 'Isola delle Correnti”, the southernmost point of
Sicily.

By car,
passing through the snowy mountains near Altamura and Gravina di Puglia to reach
Crotone, the place chosen as the actual starting point of our bike trip. The day is
terribly cold. In Altamura an heavy snow storm forces me to stop and mount the
snow-chains; the journey continues through several difficulties and with some serious
concern with respect to the bad weather that we might expect for the upcoming days
!!! The trip step-by step

Passing by Capo
Colonna we stopped for a while in the neighbourhood of the Greek temple of Hera
Lacinia where the ruins of the only one left column still dominate the blue horizon.

The journey
continues through a sort of gentle rolling fields planted with fennel and
artichokes till the somehow unappealing urban area of Capo Rizzuto. It goes a
bit better in the vicinity of le Castella where, barely connected to the
mainland by a thin land strip, we can visit the beautiful and so far well
preserved Aragonese castle.Just a few
more kilometers, not particularly beautiful, and we finally arrive in Cropani
where we can find accommodation in the only open B&B of the place !!

Short but rather tough stage today. Cold, very cold, and water, occasionally mixed-up to snow
!!!

The planned
route was envisaging indeed some deviations to the sea but, due to the very bad
weather conditions, at the end we unfortunately had to adapt the planned route to
follow the main road (strada statale SS106), quite busy indeed though never
dangerous at all.

To
highlight the transition to Copanello, definitely the most critical section of
the stage; here inevitable the passage for a very dark tunnel of 500 m that
before leaving I studied with a magnifying glass ... just in the attempt to avoid
it !!

Immediately
out of the tunnel, taking a detour to the right and so far leaving the SS106,
the road was repeatedly blocked by landslides and falling rocks. Nevertheless a
very nice bit of a road, for the most part overlooking the sea from the top.

The arrival
in Soverato under a very cold rain offered us a pretty well-deserved shelter where
to warm&dry-up and make plannings for the day after.

Today, as
soon as the dawn light started to filter through the window blinds I realized
that the day would have been much milder than foreseen and, above all, with no
rain at all.

Most of the
road continued to follow the coastline with long stretches overlooking only from
a few meters away the sea, from time to time crossing summer resorts mostly totally
desert in these winter days.A
particular mention for their beauty goes to the waterfronts of Soverato, Gioiosa
e Roccella Ionica.

The nice weather
seems to resist !!! Even today a wonderful day with temperatures in the between
13 ° C in the morning and 17 ° C in the afternoon.Crispy air
blows and superb sea views are obviously deeply welcome though, unfortunately, they seem to be totally unable to "compete" nor "compensate" for so much widespread degradation of the surroundings,
hundreds of horrible and generally empty or incomplete houses just a few steps
from the beach and then the usual infamous junk abandoned everywhere. A magnificent
example of an environmental irresponsible anarchy, in other words a sort of a total social and economic self-castration
!!!

Tuttavia l'emozione di riuscire a vedere dall'altra parte dello stretto la Sicilia è ugualmente grande e appagante; sullo sfondo la sagoma dell'Etna che si nasconde tra le nuvole e un cielo plumbeo come raramente avevo visto fanno da cornice al lungomare più bello che mi possa venire in mente.The arrival
to Reggio Calabria was certainly not one of the best, some twenty kilometers of
large degradation that it would have definitely been better to avoid !!! However,
the thrill of being able to see Sicily across the other side of the Strait was equally
great and rewarding; definitely exciting in the background the unique shape of Etna
in the amidst of leaden heavy clouds as I had rarely seen before.

During the
night I unfortunately had a very bad dream: the bridge over the Strait was
there !!! In the dream it appeared to be beautiful, refined, elegant ...
horrible !! Fortunately
it was just a dream, nothing more !!

Getting out
of Messina, and that wasn’t for me the first time, always has been one of the
most complicated things I could think.

Nevertheless,
once overcome the initial town outskirts, the rest of the route followed the
main road again that, thanks to the parallel motorway, was never busy at all.The various
waterfronts up to Taormina, our final destination for the today stage, enrich
with a certain continuity all the surroundings; worth to mention the ones of
Ali, Roccalumera e Mazzarò.

Nowadays it appears somehow easy to have everything as for granted, though certain
little emotions are still possible, such as cycling in the heart of winter and
be faced with scenarios like the one of the picture below: this was the volcan Etna
this morning in all its “white cap” elegant magnificence.Other
awesome pieces of a road during today stage, perhaps a little bit
"rough" but still definitely beautiful, were: Fiumefreddo, Riposto,
Giarre, Acireale, Aci Trezza, Aci Castello.

L'arrivo a Catania nel tardo pomeriggio

27JAN2016: Catania-Siracusa, 72km, 418mH+/420mH-

Non so il perchè, ma uscire da Catania è sempre stato più facile che entrarci.Il litorale tra Catania e Siracusa, solo a tratti, non è particolarmente amico anche se, almeno fino ad Augusta, risulta piuttosto semplice da seguire.Ad Augusta, non lontano dai petrolchimici di Priolo, le cose si complicano: la strada statale SS 114-Orientale Sicula diventa di fatto vietata al transito in bicicletta. Obbligatorio dunque spostarsi sulla provinciale (ex SS114) "accarezzando" così i diversi km del petrolchimico ed arrivare finalmente e felicemente a Siracusa imboccando per finire la bellissima ciclabile ricavata dal tracciato della vecchia ferrovia.I do not know
exactly why but getting out of Catania has always been easier than entering in its urban area. The road between Catania and Siracusa is not particularly cycle-friendly
and, especially around Augusta, not simple
to follow at all. Indeed once in the surrounding of Augusta, not far from the
petrochemical plants of Priolo, things all of a sudden get somehow complicated:
the SS-114 Orientale Sicula becomes a sort of a motorway and as such effectively
banned to the transit by bicycles. Mandatory therefore at this point to move to
the provincial road (i.e. SP114, ex SS114) following by close several
kilometers of the petrochemical plants for finally arriving to Siracusa through the
splendid cycleway built just a few years ago on top of the dismissed railway
track.

An exciting
piece of coastline, all over through extremely quiet roads always overlooking
by close a splendid sea. After a few km, just from a little more than an handful
of meters away, l' isola delle Correnti (the Isle of Currents) ... a kind of magical mirage between the Ionian
Sea and the Channel of Sicily.